Chapter Text
“You need to practice kissing?” Zheng Yunlong says, voice skeptical. “At your age?”
“Stage kissing,” Ayanga clarifies, not attempting to hide the way that his mouth quirks. “For the next performance I’m in.”
“Mm,” Zheng Yunlong hums noncommittally, not looking up from his phone. His legs, draped across the couch, barely leave room for Ayanga; his socked feet, crossed at the ankle, brush up against the side of one thigh. “And your co-star?”
Ayanga purses his lips, waving his fingers through the air in a fiddly motion. “I wouldn’t want to presume,” he says. An unmarried woman, the two of them practicing alone? It’s not a good look- too much potential for assumptions, for misinterpretation. Unlike with Zheng Yunlong, who always says exactly what he’s thinking. There’s not much room to wonder what’s going through his mind when every one of Zheng Yunlong’s opinions is immediately thrust into Ayanga’s face, including, most recently, the “insipid-smelling” hand cream he’d used at the last photoshoot, the way his latest haircut “showed off his wrinkles,” and the style of his latest set of shoes (“can I have these?”)
Zheng Yunlong glances up with the ridiculous face he makes when he thinks he’s saying something clever, eyes wide and fake-insulted. “Oh, but you can presume with me?” he says- acting offended, as if there’s any dignity left between them after 10 years.
Ayanga rolls his eyes. “Well?” he says.
Zheng Yunlong’s grin morphs into a real one, and he shifts on the couch, one foot brushing against Ayanga’s leg in a half-nudge. “What’s the staging?” he asks.
“Audience to the right,” Ayanga says, nodding to the open side of the couch. “She’s lying down- it’s on the stage floor though, not a raised platform.”
“Fine. Come on,” Zheng Yunlong says, spreading his arm in a flourish. As Ayanga shifts up, Zheng Yunlong moves so that there’s space between his legs and the couch cushion- leaving somewhere for Ayanga to brace his knee as he kneels over him, back and thighs straight and upright. “What’s the song?” Zheng Yunlong asks, and nods along as Ayanga hums a few bars. He looks perfectly comfortable, on his back beneath Ayanga like this. Well, they’ve done much the same before, rehearsing during their days in university; and he’s not braced on a wobbly couch cushion like Ayanga’s poor knee is. He hasn’t moved at all from where he was lounging earlier, actually.
“Slide down,” Ayanga says. “Her head is flat on the ground.”
Zheng Yunlong makes a long-suffering noise, but moves down the cushions, until his head is away from the arm of the couch. He tugs a pillow out from beneath his head, letting it drop unceremoniously to the floor, and raises an eyebrow at Ayanga.
Ayanga isn’t staring, exactly. He and Zheng Yunlong have locked lips before; have been pressed together all along their fronts on stage, with Zheng Yunlong flat on his back, just like this.
That was a decade ago, though; things are different now. Neither of them is young and rehearsing like this will be the only shot they’ll ever have to make things big; both of them have been on more stages than they can count, sang for audiences they never could have dreamed of, all those years ago in university.
But there’s something about looking down at Zheng Yunlong like this, being reminded of it. Of how it felt, to pour the entirety of their hearts and souls into the rehearsal, like there was a summit, a pinnacle of perfect performance, and they both saw no choice but to keep running towards it. That feeling has never stopped in Ayanga- and he sees it reflected in Zheng Yunlong, each time they collaborate, each time they rehearse. Even now; every single time.
That was the real reason he wanted to practice with him- not because of things being awkward between him and his perfectly professional co-star. But to keep chasing that high, that peak of performance. With Zheng Yunlong, whose passion for it has never faded.
“Are you reminiscing?” Zheng Yunlong says incredulously, breaking Ayanga out of his trance.
Ayanga shakes his head in amusement, looking up towards the ceiling as if for patience, and lowers his head to meet Zheng Yunlong’s.
As is his practice in first rehearsals, he puts a hand on Zheng Yunlong’s cheek, facing the audience, to cover for any awkwardness or lack of chemistry. The pose for this kiss calls for the leg toward the audience to be stretched back, planted between the woman’s legs at close to mid thigh; nothing scandalous, but enough to create an exciting visual contrast between the angles of his right and left legs, the drape of the costume emphasizing the lines. All his weight is on his left knee and hand for this pose, which is why he almost falls in surprise when Zheng Yunlong meets his polite stage kiss with a real open-mouthed one, just like all those years ago.
Zheng Yunlong’s kiss is nothing like it was back then; and yet, there’s a lingering sense of familiarity to it. They never kissed during the rehearsals; the only time that Ayanga felt this warm pressure against his lips was in those moments on stage, caught in the high of the successful harmonies of their song, the sweat still hot on their bodies from dancing, the audience’s gaze rapt as the lights lowered and the music faded. A wave of nostalgia hits him, sudden enough that his breath catches in his chest the way he’s trained it not to.
Zheng Yunlong shifts his head away slightly, eyes blinking open under Ayanga, unperturbed.
“What’s my move?” he asks.
“You put your arms around my shoulders,” Ayanga says reflexively. He hasn’t looked away from Zheng Yunlong; their faces are very close. He sits up a little, putting some space between them- though Zheng Yunlong, as usual, seems completely oblivious about his consideration.
“Like this?” Zheng Yunlong asks, looping his long arms around Ayanga’s shoulders. The weight of them pulls Ayanga in a little closer. “Or like this?”- he adjusts them, so that one is beneath Ayanga’s audience-side arm, resting high on his shoulderblade, leaving a better view of their faces.
“My lead likes the first one,” Ayanga says. Zheng Yunlong’s eyes are very dark beneath him, his eyelashes very long. He doesn’t look like he’s trying to give anyone shit right now; just like he’s planning on getting everything right, no matter how many tries it takes. Ayanga has always liked that look. “But I think the second gives the audience a better view.”
“Hm,” Zheng Yunlong says, and doesn’t move his arms. “Okay,” he says, testingly resting his right hand on Ayanga’s hair, then his neck. “No wig, right?” Ayanga shakes his head. “Is this jostling your mic?”
The way that his arm wraps around Ayanga’s neck could very well press against the position of the mic on his cheek; but it won’t, the way that Zheng Yunlong holds it. Things always work with him, it feels like; his experience shows through.
“No wig,” Ayanga confirms. “This is fine.”
“Okay,” Zheng Yunlong says, and releases him. “Again, from the top.”
Ayanga sits back up fully; back straight, he looks down at Zheng Yunlong, counting the beats at the end of the song in his head. Zheng Yunlong hums the baseline at the exact time that Ayanga gets to that phrase in his mind, and something thrills in his chest as he leans down to repeat the process.
Zheng Yunlong kisses just as firmly this time; his mouth opens, hot and wet; then his arms come up a beat too early.
“On the next beat,” Ayanga says, sitting back up; and Zheng Yunlong nods, and hums the line that leads them in, and they do it again.
And again. And again.
The kissing feels natural; the part where Ayanga does a body roll down onto him after, less so. It doesn’t seem to phase Zheng Yunlong, so Ayanga tries not to pay it too much mind; his back gets tired after a few repetitions, so they continue onto the next part, which is just more kissing, Zheng Yunlong’s hands caressing up and down his sides as if to set the fabric of the costume off in the stage lighting. It feels endless, though it lasts only a few seconds each time; but even counting the beats unconsciously in his head, knowing the exact duration, it’s still slow and drawn out, mouth moving with Zheng Yunlong’s sweet and viscous like honey.
They’re pressed together all along their fronts; after a while, a very thin line of sweat forms at the edge of Zheng Yunlong’s hairline, pressed down into the cushions as he is by Ayanga’s warm frame. But he doesn’t complain at all; he never does, while performing. Before and after every practice session, yes. On camera when discussing their morning rehearsal team jogs, yes. But never during the actual act.
After long enough, the kissing just feels natural; the rhythm of the song guides their separations, and they come back together without words each time. Ayanga has it; he’s got a full handle on how the performance should feel, on the angles, on the timing. But something about doing it with Zheng Yunlong feels so easy, so good, that he almost wishes it could go on. That he could rehearse each piece of the performance like this one; that he could play across from him once again, co leads on the same stage.
Finally, he disengages, eyes blinking open to rest on Zheng Yunlong’s face. His lips are just the slightest shade redder than usual; or maybe it’s the way the light shines on them, slightly wet.
Ayanga has never seen a Zheng Yunlong that’s been kissed for so long before. It sets off some strange feeling in his gut, that twists through him comfortably, growing warm and settling in him like it belongs there.
“Like that, then,” Zheng Yunlong says. “From the beginning, once more through?”
Ayanga nods, and sits up again, and leans down to take Zheng Yunlong’s mouth. Familiar and comfortable now, his lips part easily; he feels Zheng Yunlong’s arms come up to wrap around his shoulders, and he rolls his weight down onto him, the press of the firm body beneath him solid and reliable. When the bars of the song finish in his head, he feels Zheng Yunlong relax at the exact moment that he releases him from the kiss. The muscles beneath him return to laziness, instead of the controlled relaxation of a superb performance; his hand comes up to push at Ayanga’s shoulder.
“You’re hot,” he complains.
“Is this sexual harassment?” Ayanga says, totally deadpan, as he stops moving away and instead redistributes his whole weight on Zheng Yunlong in punishment. His head lays flat on Zheng Yunlong’s chest and shoulder, right over his heart. He hopes that Zheng Yunlong sweats through his borrowed shirt- Ayanga didn’t plan on getting it back anyway, after he lent it to him three years ago.
“Get off me, old man,” Zheng Yunlong says. “I don’t want your wrinkles to rub off on me.” When he thinks no one can see his face, he never bothers to hide his smile; Ayanga doesn’t think he knows how easy it is to hear.
Ayanga lets Zheng Yunlong’s batting hand swat him off and away, like a cat; he rolls to his feet and into the kitchen to get water. He grabs a beer for Zheng Yunlong from the fridge on the way, and balances the cold circle of it on his forehead as he returns.
Zheng Yunlong starts, then sits up and takes it without a word of thanks. After he cracks it open, though, he knocks it against Ayanga’s glass.
“Jiayou,” he mumbles against the rim as he takes the first sip.